


Factory Default

by Quicksilver_ink



Series: Let's Save the Future! [2]
Category: Chrono Trigger
Genre: Adventure, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 15:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17164631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/pseuds/Quicksilver_ink
Summary: Lucca, Ayla, and Marle rescue Robo and Atropos from Mother Brain. (Again.)





	Factory Default

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWrites/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide Madness, SkyWrites! This is by no means a masterpiece, but I hope you are entertained! :)

Marle cleared the last two steps down from the Epoch in a leap and rushed forward, gawking. Her head turned this way and that as she took in their surroundings, eyes shining with delight. “Wow! The new future’s so green! Lucca, why didn’t you say? This is _amazing!_ ”

“New future green, like Ayla time!” Ayla had bounded out as well, forgoing the ladder entirely to land cat-like on all fours. 

Lucca was busy with the Epoch’s shut-down cycle. “I came in winter, last time. It was a bit snowier then.”

“Oh, that makes sense. So, where’s Robo live? Over there?” Marle pointed at the nearby dome of a city. Unlike the shattered domes of the old Future, this one was like a perfect soapbubble, its surface free of cracks and iridescent in the sunlight. “Love it!”

“Actually, he said he was going to be visiting Atropos and the other R-Y series robots at the factory, over there.” Lucca pointed.

Ayla and Marle turned to Lucca, and then further to see where she was pointing. Much closer than the distant, sparkling city, the Geno Dome loomed over them, dark and dingy. Lucca had landed the Epoch at the edge of a dark patch of scarred rock, asphalt, and dirt that surrounded the building. Weeds sprouted in places, pale and sickly compared to the verdant landscape that spread in the direction of the city.

“So the old creepy factory is still old and creepy looking, even with the Day of Lavos un-happened.” Marle grimaced. “Somehow it even looks even worse surrounded by all the pretty greenery.”

“Ayla no like. Place not look healthy.” 

“Yeah.” Lucca pushed her glasses up her nose. “Robo said he thought it was the facility’s age — I mean, it predates the old Day of Lavos, and they weren’t as good about pollution stuff back then. They also had some butt-ugly architectural fads that probably didn’t help any. There’s this one called Brutalism-” She broke off as Marle giggled behind a hand. “What?”

“You’re encyclopedia-ing again. Don’t worry, it’s cute! But we both promised my dad I’d be home by dinner. So let’s go. Even if it’s creepy.” She gestured, open-handed, at the landscape ahead of them. 

Lucca adjusted her glasses. “Right. Let’s get going.”

“Sooner we go, sooner we go home,” Ayla agreed.

They took the asphalt road on foot. It was not a long walk to the front gate, but it was an eerily silent one, the only sounds the crunch of their feet on gravel in places where the strange scars cutting across the weeds and rock slashed across the road as well.

“No animal sound,” Ayla said quietly. “No bug sing. It sound like winter, but warm.”

Lucca stopped walking and strained her ears, paying attention to the silence. Ayla was right. There were no animal sounds, not even the distant chittering of rats or the hum of insects.

“This is creepy,” Marle whispered. “And what’s happened to the road?”

“Beam weapons, I think. Although the craters are probably bombs or something else concussive.” 

Marle giggled nervously. “I guess you’d know, being the explosives expert.”

“Hahah, yeah, of course!” Lucca’s boast rang hollow to her own ears. 

Ignoring them both, Ayla bounded ahead to one of the larger craters beside the road. She slid down the rounded slope inside and started digging around in the dirt.

“What’re you doing?” Lucca called.

Ayla didn’t bother to look up from her digging to answer. “Big holes in Ayla home sometime have special rock!”

“Umm… Probably not here. The ones you’re thinking about are meteorites. These were from weapons.”

But Ayla ignored her. Lucca and Marle wound up walking well past her before Ayla lost interest in her crater, only to run ahead to the next one.

“I really don’t think-” Lucca began, after as Ayla dug around in the base of her fourth crater, only to be cut off by a triumphant shout.

“Ahah! Rock!” The woman scrambled out of the crater. It had been a particularly sandy one, cross by one of the beam-weapon scars. She thrust her find at Lucca and Marle.

“Is it a meteorite? I thought they were usually heavier,” Marle said, taking it in both hands. The roundish lump of rock looked rough and sandy, light against Ayla’s tanned hands. But as she lifted it, light glinted off of a few glossy green patches.

Lucca leaned forward. She scratched at it with a fingernail, then the metal corner of her Wondershot. “I bet you anything the bomb — or the beam weapon — melted the sand and turned it into glass. Crono made it happen a few times with lightening spells, but this has a very different shape.”

Even Ayla seemed subdued after that.

* * *

Despite the war-torn landscape surrounding the factory, nothing happened when they drew close to the main entrance of the facility. Lucca looked around for mounted beam cannons or other weaponry, but it was either hidden or just not there.

The door was firmly closed, but there was a station beside it, with a small screen and console. Holding her breath, Lucca pressed the button marked “Press Me.”

Words appeared on the screen, although Lucca had to wipe off dirt and grime to read them clearly. STATE YOUR NAME AND BUSINESS.

Marle leaned forward. “Hello! It’s Marle, Lucca, and Ayla, and we’re here to visit Robo — uh, Prometheus? -- and Atropos. Can we come in?”

The door slid open with a rumble of machinery and a rusty squeal that had all three clapping their hands to their ears.

PRELIMINARY ACCESS GRANTED. SUBMIT YOURSELVES FOR INSPECTION IN THE INSPECTION AREA. Then the screen dimmed. 

The three exchanged looks. 

“Probably a security measure,” Lucca said, forcing confidence into her voice. This place was creepy enough, but it was supposed to be her element, so if she faltered… “Or could be to screen for pathogens. These are pretty routine, don’t worry.”

She strode swiftly into the factory, trying to seem calm, cool, collected, and in control, although mostly what she felt was creeped out.

The front room looked largely the same as it had when she’d been with Robo, back before they changed the future — same shape and size, same computer equipment against the fall wall. 

There were some key differences, though. The center of the room had a short,square, raised platform with a red “X” painted on the floor. On stands at each of the four corners of this platform were what Lucca _hoped_ were cameras or other diagnostic devices. A couple of them looked worryingly gun-like. 

Beyond these apparatuses, the door further into the factory was closed. There was a red indicator light beside it. Presumably they’d all need to pass inspection before it would open.

“Here goes nothing!” Despite her bravado, Lucca squeezed her eyes shut as she stepped onto the X.

She felt the familiar crackle of energy around her — definitely not her element, and not magic either, more like one of Robo’s beams than anything. But nothing hurt.

An electronic voice crackled to life from hidden speakers. “Inspection passed. No Prohibited Material detected. You may proceed.”

Lucca let out her breath and hopped off the X. “All clear,” she said, turning with an encouraging wave to the others. “Who’s next? Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.”

Marle stepped forward next. She climbed onto the platform wearing an expression like someone expecting to be dumped with cold water. Lucca watched as beams of yellow light from several directions scanned her slowly and steadily, from head to toe.

“Inspection passed. No Prohibited Material detected. You may proceed.”

Marle exhaled all in a woosh. “That was so weird! But you’re right, it didn’t hurt at all.” She joined Lucca on the other side of the X.

“Ayla turn!” Showing none of the apprehension of the other two, Ayla bounded forward, still holding her rock.

The light proceeded down from her head to her toe, then paused, and scanned back up to torso-level. The front beam turned a dull red. “Prohibited Material detected,” the electronic voice intoned, and Lucca heard the telltale hum of a laser gun warming up. 

“Ayla, get out of there,” she shouted, or tried to; the words were only halfway out of her mouth when, with a zing, a bright beam of light seared through the room.

Ayla’s rock disintegrated in her hands. Her face, Lucca saw around spots in her vision, was ashen.

“Prohibited Material deleted,” the voice announced. “No further Prohibited Material detected. You may proceed.”

Lucca and Marle ran forward, catching Ayla by the arms as she stumbled off the X.

“Are you okay?” Marle asked. “Never mind, let me.” She murmured a brief incantation, and a new light, a softer, gentler yellow than the inspection beams, washed over Ayla.

The prehistoric woman waved them away. “Ayla fine. Just surprise.” She scowled. “But why smash rock? It good rock!”  


“Maybe it had some kind of germs or bugs on it?” Marle hazarded. “Lucca said it could be a health scan.”

“By that logic, we should all have been zapped,” Lucca said. “We’re probably carrying all sorts of things from different eras and continents.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, how come none of us have gotten sick from time travel? Ayla’s people’s immune systems are adapted to their time, but we would have been carrying novel pathogens from millions of years in the future. And likewise, their era would be full of extinct bacteria and viruses that-”  


Ayla cut in, impatient. “Who care! We find Robo fast, yes? Find Robo, leave bad place, get new rock, go home.”

The indicator light on the factory door had turned green, although the door itself was still closed. It was a blast door, and Ayla shoved it along its rails with a grunt and what Lucca suspected was rather more force than she needed.

The interior of the facility was dim, lit only with minimal safety lighting, but as they entered, brighter lights switched on in the front room. It looked pretty much the same as the R-Y series factory from the old future — sheet metal walls and doors, an abundance of large screens and terminals. Lucca was willing to bet that there would be the same arrangement of conveyor belts and laser barriers as before.

“You dare to defile this place, humans?” 

All three froze. It was the same electronic voice as they’d heard in the courtyard, or it sounded like it. But the courtyard voice had been flat; this voice held contempt, and a sort of bored curiosity. Given personality, it was also horrifyingly familiar.

“Mother Brain?” Marle whispered. It seemed she’d recognized it too.

“We’re here to visit Robo — that is, Prometheus — and Atropos. We passed the preliminary screening.

“I haven't seen your kind in ages. Let me welcome you. Come closer… Let's see just what you can do…” The broadcast ended with a hiss of static.

Lucca exchanged looks with the others. Really, what other choice did they have but to press on?

* * *

The facility was mostly as Lucca remembered it, which meant almost everything was in shades of gray and dingy brown, with no color besides that of the screens set into walls.

Well, almost no color. A jittering robot was advancing down the hall, slapping posters up on the walls haphazardly. They were all crooked, and most were overlapping. Bad programming, or some sort of virus? Wondering about this erratic behavior, Lucca stepped forward to take a closer look.

Marle, who had been a step ahead of her down the hallway, suddenly went “eep!” She spun about, red-faced. “Let’s go the other way.”

Baffled, Lucca craned to see around Marle. A moment later, her own face burning, she knew exactly why Marle wanted to go the other way. “Yeah. Uh. Let’s.” It didn’t help that some of the posters were some kind of fancy moving holographs.

Ayla had been a step ahead of Marle. She was now several steps ahead, and still walking. She stopped and turned back to look at them, puzzlement clear on her face. “What wrong?”

“Not that hallway,” Marle said, her voice higher-pitched than usual. She’d put a hand over her eyes.

“Absolutely not,” Lucca agreed. “Not with all… That… On the walls.”

Ayla looked at the wall, then back at them. “What matter? It just people.”

“Yes, but they’re _naked_ people.” Lucca took off her glasses and busied herself cleaning them on the edge of her shirt. 

“What wrong with naked?” asked the woman wearing the fur bikini. “All born naked.” 

Okay, maybe Lucca should’t have expected someone from the dawn of civilization to care about nudity. She put her glasses back on. “It’s also that they’re. Um. Doing things.” 

“So? That how you make new people,” Ayla replied, with the air of one reminding others of something obvious. 

Lucca had no response for that.

“…let’s just check the other way, first. _Please,_ Ayla,” Marle pleaded. She still had her hands over her eyes.

“All right! Ayla go other way.” Shaking her head, she walked past the obscene wallpaper and joined them in the dingy grey part of the tunnel.

They rounded a corner — none too soon, Lucca thought — and came across a small area with a console and screen. Lucca switched on one of the screens. There was a blank bar at the top of the screen with a flashing cursor — probably password entry. She paused, thinking, and then typed “12345”. She pressed the enter key.

“Resource not found,” said the flat electronic voice from the first room. The screen lit up with a garish, flashing pattern of outward-moving concentric circles of every possible color Lucca could imagine.

“Urgh, what’s that,” Marle complained, looking away. “My eyes hurt just looking at it.”

“Probably a security measure.” Lucca squinted at the screen, trying to figure out how to shut off the flashing.

Ayla glanced at it, and must have decided it posed no threat, because she turned away, uninterested. 

A few more password attempts (”password”, “abcd” and “Luccathegreat”), a few more “Resource not found”s and different flashy screens. Lucca was having no luck.

She tried “planet”.

This time, Mother Brain spoke. “Three hundred years ago, a disaster greatly changed the planet. At this rate, humans will die out, choking on their own filth.”

“Disaster? What disaster?”  


“I have no idea,” Lucca admitted. “Sounds like it’s some kind of pollution thing? I wish we’d found Robo already; he’d know.”

Lucca tried a few more passwords, but Mother Brain was apparently not moved to say more. Eventually they abandoned the (still-flashing) screen and moved on.

* * *

They found one part of the facility that had become notably different in this new future — the place that had held one of the Poyozo dolls seemed to have become a staff break room of sorts, with table, chairs, and a kitchenette. Scorch marks and a few singed pieces of tape on the walls hinted at signs or posters that had once hung there. There were a few long-abandoned coffee mugs (grey and black, mostly) with depressingly twee slogans and a few piles of rubble that were probably former coffee mugs. The refrigerator door had a thin coating of ash. By unspoken agreement, none of them opened it.

Ayla, who was fascinated by plumbing in all its forms, turned the taps on the sink. There was a hiss and a pop, and a splutter of reddish-brown liquid ran out.

“Gah! Blood!” Marle shrieked, leaping back.

“Not blood,” Ayla started to say, reassuringly, but she was cut off.

“Prohibited material detected,” the flat electronic voice from the screening room announced, and all three threw themselves to the ground, away from the sink.

“I think it’s just rust!” Lucca shouted, from the floor. “Not blood! You don’t need to-”

“User appeal. Flagged material will be placed in the appeals queue.”

An all-to-familiar robot marched into the room, towards the sink. Ignoring the knobs and faucet, he seized the entire counter into which the sink was set, and with a deafening sound of tortured metal and shattering wood, tore the entire unit out of the wall. He marched mechanically out of the room. 

There was silence in his wake, except for the gush of water flowing from one of the torn pipes in the wall.

“Was that Robo?” Marle asked, quietly.

“It certainly looked like him.” Lucca climbed to her feet, and helped the princess up. 

Ayla had taken cover under the lone central table. She emerged cautiously, like a cat who wasn’t quite sure if the vaucum cleaner was safely gone. “It Robo outside, but not Robo inside.”

“Maybe he was brainwashed?” Marle dusted herself off. “Like Atropos was before. Lucca, do you think you could fix him?”

“Well, we can’t leave him like that,” Lucca said. “Let’s see where he went.”

Following Robo was initially very easy, because of small wet puddles left in his wake from the damaged sink. They ran out all of a sudden near a fork.

Ayla scouted ahead along one hallway. She came back and shook her head. “No sign here. You?”

“None here either.” Lucca banged a fist on the wall. “Where did he go? And what was done with him?”

“Wait. I think I know where he went.” Marle looked grim. “Remember that awful room we saw last time with the humans on the conveyor belt?”

Lucca felt ill. “Yeah.” For Ayla, she added, “We never found out where they were going or what was going to happen, but it was clear it was bad.”

Ayla nodded. “Then we go. Save Robo. Save humans. Get new rock!”

* * *

The conveyor belt room was much as Lucca remembered it —spatially, it was occupied largely by the massive conveyor belt that crossed the room from left to right, punctuated by unspecified processing machinery. Aurally, it was crowded with mechanical rumbling, creaking, and groaning. 

Lucca was very glad she’d thought to engage her helmet’s ear-protectors before entering the room.

“Room loud,” Ayla cried over the din, clapping her hands to her ears.

“At least there’s no people on the conveyor belt this time,” Marle shouted, also covering her ears. “Just a bunch of random stuff. Look, there’s the sink!”

The conveyor belt was littered with junk — the broken sink was joined by a chair (also broken), an overturned wastebasket, a mattress, assorted metal machines and broken robot parts in painted in bright colors, a 2031 AD calender with a photo of the owl on the front, and at least three loaves of bread. Lucca watched everything roll past, trying to find a rhyme or reason to the collection. 

Then, a slumped pink mechanical form rolled into view. 

“Is that _Atropos_?” Marle shouted.

The pink figure stirred, slowly. The conveyor belt had already taken her halfway across the room when the lights of her eyes flickered on, and she was almost out the other side when her head swiveled to face them. “Please! Let me out! The way to do it is-”

She disappeared from view.

“We’re too late!” Marle bellowed, distraught. “She’s gone!”

“I think we’re fine, actually,” Lucca shouted back. “Look!” She pointed at the sink, which had re-emerged on the left side of the room again, followed by the broken chair. “I think the belt’s on a loop. And none of the machinery’s doing anything.”

And indeed it was. Atropos reappeared only a few minutes later.

“That machine! There!” she pointed at the hulking box of metal ahead of her, passed through it, and then turned around to point at it behind her.

Lucca and Marle examined the machine. A black-and-white video screen showed the items on the conveyor belt passing through. There were two buttons, labeled ACCEPT and REJECT.

“Let’s test this,” Lucca shouted at Marle, who nodded. When the sink passed by, Marle pressed REJECT.

The screen was filled with white. When Lucca and Marle ran ahead, there was no sign of the sink 

The screen had returned to the video feed, so Lucca pressed ACCEPT on the loaves of bread.

A chute opened. The loaves of bread shot through, flying across the room. The smashed into the wall and exploded into 

crumbs.

Ayla leapt to her feet with a startled sound, barely audible over the roar of the machines.

“This is going to take some work,” Lucca hollered at Marle, who winced at the noise and nodded.

Ten minutes later, after Marle and Ayla had both fled the noisy room, Lucca pressed ACCEPT for a final time. Atropos shot out of the chute, her trajectory slowed very slightly by the pile of crumpled papers from the wastebasket and owl calender, and collided with the mattress propped against the far wall.

* * *

“Thank you so much,” Atropos said, when they’d joined Marle and Ayla out in the much quieter hallway. “I’ve been trapped there for a week!”

“A week? What happened?” Marle asked.

“Who put you in there?” Lucca wanted to know.

“Why Robo evil?” Ayla added.

“Where to begin.” Atropos beeped thoughtfully. “Ah. Eight days ago, Anteros began behaving erratically. Mother Brain announced that she would be installing an appropriate anti-virus to rectify the issue. When I departed my charging station the next day, Mother declared me to be Prohibited Material.”

Marle scratched her head. “Why weren’t you vaporized, then? That seems to be what happens to everything else Mother Brain calls that.” 

“Clothos spoke up. Then Prometheus and Hermes marched me to the Appeals Queue. I haven’t seen any of them since, except when Prometheus brought the sink just a little ago.”

“What happened to Robo? Er, that’s what we call Prometheus,” Lucca clarified.

“He and several of our brethren were upgrading their firmware on the same day. All of them seem to have been suborned by whatever corrupted Mother Brain.”

“We have to save him,” Lucca declared. “He’s our friend! Well, normally. When he’s not tearing sinks out of the wall.” She stood up, drew her Wondershot, and held it at the ready. There was no imminent threat to fight off, it just felt like the right time in the plot to pose. “We won’t let Mother Brain control our friend like that!”

Marle climbed to her feet and struck her own pose, crossbow at the ready. “Yeah! Let’s go save Robo! And all of the robots in this facility!”

Ayla leapt to her feet in a fighting stance, hands balled into fists. “Ayla fight! Save Robo! Get new rock!”  


“You’re really hung up on that rock,” Lucca commented, lowering her gun. 

* * *

Stepping into the main control center with the resolve to defeat Mother Brain was strangely nostalgic. Again, the hologram of a face floated serenely above the CPU that housed the rogue AI. Again, screens were fixed on walls all around the room, like a futuristic house of mirrors.

Mother Brain even introduced herself in almost the same way. “You did well to come this far. I am the Mother Brain of the R-Y series factory. Come, Atropos, you must join us. I'll reset your circuitry and erase your tainted memories. Then we'll dispose of these filthy humans.” The voice, eerily mellifluous while threatening their deaths, finally turned harsh. “These filthy, degenerate, prohibited, perverted humans with their tainted, filthy minds and Prohibited Materials.”

“I refuse,” Atropos said flatly. 

“How dare-” Mother Brain thundered, but she was interrupted.

“Ayla have question!”

Rather than being outraged, Mother Brain seemed to calm. “Ask,” the AI said, magnanimously. “We welcome user feedback.”

“What ‘prohibited material’? Ayla not understand.”

Marle stepped forward beside her. “Yeah, what Ayla said. We’ve heard it a lot. But we don’t know what it _means._ ”

A screen behind Mother Brain switched on. Moments later, a photo appeared on the screen. “Look at this! Look at this filth!” 

There was an extended silence as Marle, Lucca, Ayla, and Atropos looked at each other in bafflement.

“It appears to be a desert,” the robot opined.

Lucca pushed her glasses. “Was some kind of horrible weapon dropped there? Is this the result of too much logging, or unsustainable agriculture?”

Mother Brain ignored these questions. “And look at this disgusting image!”

A wall of text appeared on the next screen. Lucca walked closer, cautiously. No laser beams or photon torpedoes stopped her, so she eventually reached the console. A few key presses, and she was able to to scroll the screen. Images appeared, interspersed with the text.

“This looks like recipes,” she said, thoughtfully. “And pictures of the steps. And the finished food.”

“It is filth, the creator even described it as such! And look at all of this! And this!”

More images flashed onto the screens, rotating across the array in turn. A whole raw chicken. Some sort of abstract art made of rectangles. Cartoon drawings of people talking about money. A disembodied green human male chest set diagonally from an owl. Cute drawings of boys holding hands and blushing. The heads of two men, expressions making it very clear what was happening where you couldn’t see.

“Niiiice,” Lucca murmured appreciatively at the image of the two men in the throes of passion, and was elbowed by Marle. “Although I sort of see what your problem might be with it.”

“Yes,” the AI said smugly, “That one almost snuck through, but luckily I could tell it was filthy from the tags.”

“Tags?” 

The collective question went unanswered. 

“So, wait.” Lucca walked back to the center of the room. “That screen, right there, has prohibited material on it, right?” She was pointing at the desert landscape.

“Got it!” Mother Brain chirped. “We’re on the case and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Also, we know it’s tempting to report the same thing a few times in hopes that it’ll get addressed sooner, but it just really clogs up our system and makes it harder to respond. We’re kind of like an elevator button.” Then, the hum of beam weapons warming up. “Prohibited Material detected.”

Moments later, the screen was reduced to a smoking ruin.

Marle’s eyes lit up. “Brilliant, Lucca! Oh, hey! Mother Brain! How about that screen? With the chicken? Is that prohibited content?”

“Got it!” Mother Brain chirped, again. “We’re on the case and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Also, we know it’s tempting to report the same thing a few times in hopes that it’ll get addressed sooner, but it just really clogs up our system and makes it harder to respond. We’re kind of like an elevator button.” Then, also again, the hum of beam weapons warming up. “Prohibited Material detected.”

And the screen was no more.

Ayla crowed. She pointed at another screen. “How about that! Pro-hib-ited material, yes? Ayla report!”

Atropos reported the next screen. Lucca and Marle reported two different screens, seconds apart, and the bizarre speech played twice at the same time, staggered slightly apart like a strange echo.

Report after report, and the screens in the room were vaporized, and then the consoles. Soon, little was left untouched except for the three humans, the robot, and of course Mother Brain.

“Look at this!” Marle said, gesturing at Mother Brain’s hologram. “This probably something prohibited and disgusting and stuff.”

“Yeah, it’s gross and bad and totally not allowed!”

“It bad! Very dirty!”

“It probably has female-presenting nipples,” Atropos added. Everyone looked at her. “I downloaded a copy of the TOS,” she explained.

One final rendition of the corny canned speech, one final hum of beam weapons warming up.

And then the AI was no more.

* * *

Robo was standing outside the room, looking sheepish, which was quite a difficult thing for a robot to do.

“I do not understand how this happened. Atropos, I apologize for how I treated you. I was…. Not myself.” His eyes blinked off and on again. “It was a very strange experience.”

“Robo, you old bucket of bolts! I’m so glad you’re you again!” Lucca embraced her friend carefully.

“I am glad to be myself as well, Miss Lucca.” His head swiveled to look at Marle, Ayla, and Atropos as he thanked them in turn, making a full 360 rotation as he did. “Thank you, Marle. Thank you, Ayla. Thank you, Atropos.”

“Ayla glad Robo better! Now we find new rock?”

“New rock?” Atropos inquired. 

“Ayla found some fused glass in one of the craters out front.” Lucca adjusted her glasses. “Mother Brain destroyed it in the screening room.”

“What caused all of those craters and things, anyway? Was that all Mother Brain?” Marle wanted to know.

“The landscape showed considerable signs of damage when I arrived.” Robo’s voice was slow and thoughtful. “I do not believe it was the malfunctioning Mother Brain.”

Everyone looked at Atropos. She waved a metallic hand. “That is nothing to worry about. It is just a relic of the old ship wars.”

**Author's Note:**

> This riddiculous romp started as a chapter from Operation: Save Marle, but has been tweaked to stand alone. Many thanks to Lady Nighteyes for cheerleading and helping me appreciate the glory that is Ayla!


End file.
